Scenes from Bourgeois Life By Nicholas Ridout. Theater: Theory/Text/Performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020; pp. xii + 211. $70 cloth, $54.95 e-book.

the burgeoning field of reenactment studies by adding significant insight into the eighteenth-century origins of the form and its relation to the performance of justice. It is a pity the author does not engage with Rebecca Schneider’s influential work on the topic, as dialogue with her main terms and ideas would have broadened the implications of his excellent analyses and arguments. One also wonders how other high-profile cases of the period, such as the trial of Charlotte Corday or the Kornmann affair, might fit into the book’s narrative. In the final section, the argument occasionally becomes repetitive, and its bold claims of reversals at times mask subtler moves that are equally or more interesting for being so. Theseminor points aside, Robert’s book is a tour de force thatwill be required reading for anyone working on theatre and history of the French Enlightenment and Revolution. The book deserves a wide readership among scholars of contemporary theatre, theatre history, and performance studies as well, especially those interested in reenactment and the interconnection of theatre and justice. Revealing how judicial procedures and outcomes both shaped and were shaped by theatre in the late eighteenth century, Dramatic Justice also reminds us that, for good and bad, our own culture of court TV, show trials, and legal dramas has its roots in the eighteenth century.